Have you ever wondered what Colors make brown? Or What two Colors make brown? Today we going to tell you more about it so let´s start

How to Make Brown by Combining Other Colors

It is a very possible scenario: one day you are in the middle of completing the painting of falling autumn leaves, but you run out of the brown paint. Or perhaps you want to create a natural shade around your eyelids but cannot find the perfect brown. Brown is a common color around us, so it is just natural that we need it more often than the rest. I am going to explain some ways to bring the color by mixing some other colors. Knowing what colors make brown is important so you won’t have to panic when your brown paint or eye-shadow needs some refill right when you are about to use it.

About brown

Brown is the color of the earth, the trunks and branches and old leaves, of the skin and hair of many of us. It is also the color of the natural amber and my favorite food. Brown is everywhere, though some people dislike the color because they associate it with humility, and naturally, poverty- just like the robe of the monks who have left all worldly temptation.

Earthly and warm, brown symbolizes simplicity and comfort. When you wear brown, you create an image of a warm, approachable, and simple self. Yet, brown also expresses honesty and sincerity. Brown also symbolizes maturity. This color does not beg to be the center of the attention. It becomes the background which houses any other colors and allows them to shine and combine. Therefore, the meaning of the color also depends on the other colors which accompany it

We do not see brown when a rainbow in the sky appears after the rain. When talking about the spectrum of light, brown is created when hues with high wavelength, such as red, orange or yellow, are combined with a little luminance. Therefore, there are many shades and categories of brown, we can see red brown, orange brown, and even yellow brown. Each of these combinations has their own shades and tints such as seal brown, auburn, sepia, bronze and sandy brown.

What colors make brown?

The easiest and simplest way to bring brown is by mixing red and green. This is a common knowledge- every third grader learns it at school. But do you know that there are actually multiple ways to create the color brown by combining two or more colors? Before going into the detail of what colors makes brown, let’s learn some facts about color theory.

Primary, secondary, and tertiary color

Basically, there are only three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. If you are a stranger to the term, primary colors are colors which are not derived from or by mixing any other colors, they are the basic colors. These primary colors can be combined to make other colors. In fact, just having these colors are enough to create any other colors.

When we combine the resulting color with white, we will create a lighter tone or tint of the color. When we combine it with black, we will get a darker hue or shade of that color. Technically, black and white are not found in the color wheel. Black is the color seen with an absence of light. Meanwhile, white contains all color combined in a perfect balance. We can create black by mixing all primary colors, each with the same proportion.

Colors that we acquire by mixing two primary colors are called secondary colors. These colors are orange, green and purple. We can have orange by mixing yellow and red. To get green from primary colors, just mix blue and yellow. Meanwhile, blue and red will give us purple.

Tertiary colors are achieved by combining a primary with a secondary color. Because of this, the hue is named using two words separated by a dash. The first word must be the primary color, such as yellow-orange, yellow-green, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple or blue-green. Brown is categorized a tertiary color and it is important to remember to understand what colors make brown.

How to make brown?

We can get brown by mixing different color combinations. Each of these combinations will result in different variants of brown. We can always adjust the result to get the kind of brown that we want. Here are the combinations of colors we can use to get brown.

What 2 colors make brown?

Orange and blue

Since brown is a tertiary color, it is acquired through combining a primary and a tertiary color. Orange is a secondary color. To create it, we must combine yellow and red. Add a little yellow to a larger amount of red. To be specific, I usually use the proportion 1: 10 for yellow: red. As a result, the orange that appears will be dark, more reddish and yellowish. This is the ideal color to mix with blue. Remember; don’t add more than 10% of blue to the mixture. It will create chocolaty brown which looks very rich. If it is still too orange for you, just add the blue color to make it browner.

You can also adjust the darkness or lightness of the brown by adding more blue or orange. Adding blue will make the brown darker, while orange will make it lighter.

Green and red

Green and red will also create brown when mixed together. To make green, add 50:50 of blue and yellow. Too much blue will make it dark green, while excessive amount of yellow will make it too bright. After achieving a perfect, balanced blue, add some amount of red little by little. The result will be muddy brown.

We can also adjust the color by adding the amount of red, making it warm, reddish brown. Meanwhile, adding a bit more green will also change the hue, turning it a bit cooler.

Purple and yellow

The third common way to get brown is by mixing purple, which is derived from the combination between red and blue, and yellow. The combination of this primary and secondary color will create light brown which we can adjust in the end. We need dark purple to achieve this. We can get this by mixing equal amount of red and blue. The resulting royal purple is then combined with yellow. Since yellow is a lighter hue, the combination between them will create a light, yellowish brown. Yellow lights up the darker purple shade and turn it into brown.

If you think the result is not light enough, lighten it up with more yellow. However, if you prefer darker shade of brown, you can use more purple as an addition to the mixture.

Other methods

Besides mixing one primary and one secondary color, here are some other ways to get brown. Mix these colors to get various shades of brown!

Red, yellow and blue

So in theory, a tertiary color like purple will appear as a result of mixing one primary color and one secondary. In other words, we combine the three colors together (since a secondary color is achieved through combining two primary colors). If you do not have the patience to create a secondary color to mix with another primary to get brown, just mixing all the three together is enough. It will also gives you brown. However, the result will not be as pretty or neat as the first three methods.

If you feel like experimenting, you can try adding different proportion of red, yellow and blue to get various kinds of brown. Each time we change the proportion of a certain color, the result will also be different. If we put more yellow than the other colors to the mixture, we will get light shade of brown. To get darker shade, add more red to the combination. Similarly, the more red we add, the darker the shade is.

Orange and black

If you have the color black in your collection, you can get brown by performing a simpler method. First of all, create an orange shade if you don’t have one. Orange can be acquired through mixing blue and yellow altogether. You can combine them with any proportion you like since any resulting orange shade can be used to create brown when it mixed with black. Don’t put too much black so it is better to add it little by little. More black will give you darker shade of brown. If you also have white in your collection, adding the color into the mixture will give you a softer brown.

Brown and black

You can do this if you already have brown but not the kind of shade that you’re looking for. By adding more black, you can get a darker brown. The key is to add only a little black so it doesn’t become too dark. Of course, if you get the brown by mixing all primary colors together or combining a primary color with a secondary color, you can always darken the brown by adding more blue. However, the result will be closer to the blue hue, meaning your brown will be blue-ish. Therefore, if you just want it to be a little darker, add more black to the mixture. If you are afraid to put excessive black, you can also use grey, which is the combination of black and white.

Multiple shades of brown

As I explained before, each combination and different color proportion will give us different shades of brown. You can experiment by combining those different variants and shades to get a unique and different brown. Two or more shades acquired by using different methods will give you a different shade when combined. I find it to be a nice activity mixing those brown shades just to see what kind of brown will turn out.

I have told you what colors make brown and different methods to get it by mixing different colors. It is important to remember that the proportion of colors being combined affects the shade of brown that appears. Therefore, it is almost impossible, unless you note down and remember the exact percentage of the constructing colors, to create the same brown for the second time. If you intend to use the brown for a large scale o project, or for a long time, I suggest you to start with mixing large quantity so you dont run out of the brown and must continue with different shade of brown.

Now you know what colors make brown and what two colors make brown

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